Rather than recounting the top stories of 2018, we offer up our annual list of what we’re likely (but would prefer not) to see in the year ahead:

As a dryish winter continues the Department of Water Resources gets impatient and starts hauling truckloads of water to Lake Oroville to raise the level enough to use the new spillway. “After all the money we spent, we needed to see if the darn thing works,” said the DWR’s latest director in a press release.

After all the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s plans to remove metal and concrete from areas burned by the Camp Fire are met with public hostility, FEMA proposes hiring artists to weld all the metal together into a gigantic sculpture atop the Neal Road landfill mound. The Federal Aviation Administration nixes the plan after it turns out the artwork would end up being so tall that it would be a threat to airline traffic.

With rumblings about a Chico tax increase coming, we offer a better option that doesn’t involve raising property taxes or the sales tax. Just pick up the leftover goats that weren’t claimed in the aftermath of the Camp Fire and put them to work in Bidwell Park for vegetation removal. People would pay to see them. Maybe the city could investigate a rent-a-goat service. It beats a tax increase.

For the 35th consecutive year, proponents say they are really, really close to getting Sites Reservoir built.

Meanwhile, the government goes through with its plan to raise Shasta Dam and build twin tunnels under the delta. Officials insist the two projects are unrelated. Then they are caught laughing on a hot mike after making that statement.

In the aftermath of the Camp Fire, Chico vows to deliver on some fast-track housing in south Chico. A subdivision of 24 homes is proposed. It’s met with opposition from neighbors, who argue that it will destroy their quality of life. There are four Planning Commission meetings, followed by six City Council meetings, followed by a lawsuit. As 2020 dawns, the issue is still unresolved.

Chico homeowners are thankful for the council’s inability to help. It drives up the cost of housing to the point where “landlords” are allowed to rent out the tool shed in their backyard for $650 a month.

State legislators decide it’s time to break up PG&E, then choose the only operator less competent to run the public utility: state government.

A move in California to secede from the United States falters after the U.S. Army threatens to use lead bullets should President Donald Trump order an invasion. “Trump’s policies are bad,” said state Sen. Fredrick McGlovski, D-La Canada Fruitridge, a Free California organizer, “but we can’t endanger the condors because of that.”

Efforts to rebuild Magalia are disrupted briefly after word of the serpentine deposits near the Magalia Reservoir dam reaches the office of state Sen. Fredrick McGlovski, D-La Canada Fruitridge. “There’s asbestos in that stuff!” he exclaimed. “That’s dangerous! We can’t let people build there!”

A fire in the office of state Sen. Fredrick McGlovski, D-La Canada Fruitridge, destroys all draft copies of a bill he was composing that would ban new construction in fire-prone parts of California.

Late in the year, an investigative reporter — one of the last left in the state — discovers that politician Fredrick McGlovski, who made news all year, doesn’t even exist. She also learns there is no city in California named La Canada Fruitridge.

Donald Trump finally gets funding for his wall by convincing Americans it isn’t to keep immigrants out, but rather to keep Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea in.